A major part of the manufacturing cost is the sensor, large sensors are exponentially more expensive than smaller ones. With today's sensor manufacturing technology a full-frame camera cannot approach the price of an APS-C camera.

Just a little lesson in manufacturing economics. The cost of manufacturing has nothing - repeat - nothing to do with the price that any product sells for in the marketplace.

The price in the market, even as "suggested" by the manufacturer is always based on feedback from the market - thats you and me. The lifecycle of a product is not from the ground up, but from the final concept down. Marketing at a company decides it needs a product with feature set "X" at price point "Y" to compete. This is all based on marketing research, focus groups, informed decisions, and gut level feelings of the marketing department. At that point, they go to manufacturing and say "build us this....(whatever)". There may be some back and forth, especially when new technology will need to be brought in. The back and forth is more or less to determine the scale of the expected propduct - its product life, the number of units, how they can also use technology in other products... that sort of thing. At the end of the day - manufacturing's job is to build marketing's product, and do it at the lowest possible price, so that they make the most money. In a company the size of Canon, manufacturing is a seperate company within a company, with their own bottom line. They sell to marketing, which in turn has its own bottom line... but... always.... the actual "cost" to make anything, has no effect on its sale price. The price is always determined by market conditions. Always.

if canon could surprise us with better specs and same price.. but it won't. let's see what they come up with..

It's really not about the core specs but about the complete set including firmware features and handling - but only a real review will tell us in a couple of month when the real hardware is here (if ever).

A major part of the manufacturing cost is the sensor, large sensors are exponentially more expensive than smaller ones. With today's sensor manufacturing technology a full-frame camera cannot approach the price of an APS-C camera.

Just a little lesson in manufacturing economics. The cost of manufacturing has nothing - repeat - nothing to do with the price that any product sells for in the marketplace.

The price in the market, even as "suggested" by the manufacturer is always based on feedback from the market - thats you and me. The lifecycle of a product is not from the ground up, but from the final concept down. Marketing at a company decides it needs a product with feature set "X" at price point "Y" to compete. This is all based on marketing research, focus groups, informed decisions, and gut level feelings of the marketing department. At that point, they go to manufacturing and say "build us this....(whatever)". There may be some back and forth, especially when new technology will need to be brought in. The back and forth is more or less to determine the scale of the expected propduct - its product life, the number of units, how they can also use technology in other products... that sort of thing. At the end of the day - manufacturing's job is to build marketing's product, and do it at the lowest possible price, so that they make the most money. In a company the size of Canon, manufacturing is a seperate company within a company, with their own bottom line. They sell to marketing, which in turn has its own bottom line... but... always.... the actual "cost" to make anything, has no effect on its sale price. The price is always determined by market conditions. Always.

(the above is the condensed version, proto Readers Digest etc etc)

But must at least higher than the manufacturing cost, right?? Unless they just want to get the market share

Just a little lesson in manufacturing economics. The cost of manufacturing has nothing - repeat - nothing to do with the price that any product sells for in the marketplace.

+1 ... another factor they'll have in mind is the devaluation of the products and what premium customers will pay to get a product that doesn't drop in price too fast (ff camera bodies) or not at all (L lenses). That's why I'd even consider buying the new 24-70ii - unless it's stolen or I manage to trash it, unlike Tamron I'd expect to be able to sell the Canon lens later on if I find I don't need it anymore.

As long as there are people who think a 4 year old 5D Mark II is just as good as a brand new D600, Canon has NOTHING to worry about...

But they do, actually their worry is that the 5d2 is just too good to make an easy profit with a "real" successor 6d - either it'll be too expensive to people will still get a 5d3 or 5d2 as long as possible, or it'll be too inexpensive cutting profits.

As long as there are people who think a 4 year old 5D Mark II is just as good as a brand new D600, Canon has NOTHING to worry about...

But they do, actually their worry is that the 5d2 is just too good to make an easy profit with a "real" successor 6d - either it'll be too expensive to people will still get a 5d3 or 5d2 as long as possible, or it'll be too inexpensive cutting profits.

I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic . . . implying that those that look at actual images and performance are mindless automatons, unlike people that buy the newest thing with 3 more pixels

Just a little lesson in manufacturing economics. The cost of manufacturing has nothing - repeat - nothing to do with the price that any product sells for in the marketplace.

+1 ... another factor they'll have in mind is the devaluation of the products and what premium customers will pay to get a product that doesn't drop in price too fast (ff camera bodies) or not at all (L lenses). That's why I'd even consider buying the new 24-70ii - unless it's stolen or I manage to trash it, unlike Tamron I'd expect to be able to sell the Canon lens later on if I find I don't need it anymore.

As long as there are people who think a 4 year old 5D Mark II is just as good as a brand new D600, Canon has NOTHING to worry about...

But they do, actually their worry is that the 5d2 is just too good to make an easy profit with a "real" successor 6d - either it'll be too expensive to people will still get a 5d3 or 5d2 as long as possible, or it'll be too inexpensive cutting profits.

But must at least higher than the manufacturing cost, right?? Unless they just want to get the market share

On low end equipment, sure. On high end equipment, for which the customer is expected to buy some accessories (batteries, grip, flash, big white lens, etc), Canon can lose money on the camera and cover it from the profits on the accessories.